one argument i really hate
or a talking point, maybe is more accurate - is the thing where people argue over whether or not sex work (of any kind) can be a fun and fulfilling career.because really, what does that have to do with anything? i’ll tell you what it has to do with - it has to do with, usually, the assumption that “career” should equal “fun and fulfilling” and anything else is a total tragedy, which is just so… oblivious to a not-incredibly-lucky view of the world i can’t even believe people will argue this in earnest. like privileged isn’t even the word i want here, partly because even i, at this point, am sometimes like “ehh” when someone says “privilege” & nothing else although WOW is privilege ever a huge part of this, yes absolutely. but it goes beyond that into just a complete disappearing of the huge parts of the workforce that involve shitty but necessary jobs.
it sort of reminds me, actually, of those annoying pretty pictures that pop up on tumblr like eight hundred times a day telling you that you can be anything you want to be (i swear i have a point). while the veracity of this statement for any given individual is up for debate, the fact of the matter is it can’t be true for everyone because there just isn’t enough room in “ideal” jobs! the world needs, actually, janitors and waiters and dental hygienists and garbage collectors, and i mean i don’t see any way around that unless you’re arguing for a complete restructuring of our economic system which, good luck with that and i do mean it but i don’t see a whole lot of photographs of loopy handwriting on pretty stationery saying ALL THAT IS KEEPING YOU FROM BEING ALL YOU WANT TO BE IS YOUR OWN FEAR, AND OUR OPPRESSIVE CAPITALIST SYSTEM WHICH REQUIRES THE SUBJUGATION OF THE PASSIONS AND TALENTS OF THE MANY TO SUPPORT THE SUCCESS OF THE FEW. if anyone wants to start a tumblr for that, that’d be awesome (fuckyeahradicalhelvetica?) but i don’t see it happening.
god ANOTHER argument this reminds me of, actually, which is the “more education will fix everything” argument. now i know this sounds weird maybe coming from someone who might want to be a teacher. but part of the reason i believe so strongly in the importance of primary & secondary education is because not everyone needs a college degree. i think everyone should be ABLE to go to college if they want to, but holy jesus, you do not need a B. A. for a whole lot of jobs out there! and if every single person in the country gets a B. A., guess what? those jobs will still exist! and some people will be construction workers who are really happy they went to college because of the learning and the friends and the experiences and yadda yadda and other people will think well that was a waste of time and money, but either way, oh my lord everyone going to college will not solve poverty, because the jobs done by the working poor will still need to be done by someone. and if those jobs still pay less than a living wage, GUESS WHAT! POVERTY WILL BE MORE COLLEGE-EDUCATED, BUT IT WILL STILL EXIST.
(SIDE NOTE: i actually think there are a bunch of white-collar jobs that also do not require a B. A., really, but that’s another story for another time).
i guess what draws all of these irritating things together in my mind is that they focus exclusively on the individual, and don’t think about the fact that, yes, in capitalism, not everyone can win. and also it bothers me maybe because i am, after all, quite the daughter of privilege, to the extent that i do want a job i love and consider that an important life goal of my own, and it makes me really sad like every single day to think of the fact that actually it will always be the case that not everyone can have that, because again, even if any individual has that chance, taken as a collective unit, there are only a limited number of chances.
and the way this relates back to sex work, in my mind, is that no one goes around saying “hey, no one dreams of being a night janitor in a slaughterhouse when they grow up, therefore we should make that illegal.” we accept that some people are just going to wind up with jobs they hate, because those jobs need to be done and capitalism doesn’t care about you. but for some reason (or, “some reason”) sex work is considered separate, and can only be morally acceptable if everyone involved is having the time of their lives, instead of, you know, working a job which they may or may not always feel excited about just like a lot of other people in the world.
marx actually made this argument, in favor of abolishing capitalism, that it’s no different from prostitution but without the sex. and i mean i’m not in favor of abolishing either one of them (because no one has convinced me of a workable alternative to capitalism, and i don’t mean “theoretically workable if we started over from scratch by taking a time machine back to the 1500s and keeping capitalism from developing,” i mean “actually workable in the world we are for better or worse stuck with”) but i do think that if you are going to argue that prostitution is inherently exploitative, then you basically have to argue that capitalism is inherently exploitative, which maybe it is but at least be consistent.
or put another way, if you seriously think that “but no one would do it if they had better options” is itself a reason to make something illegal, please go read the Fast Food Nation chapter on job hazards in slaughterhouses, and then come back and seriously tell me that prostitution must be inherently and always in all circumstances somehow more exploitative than that.
the world needs some seriously unpleasant jobs to be done, and it’s pretty gross to me to pretend that this is not the case, and to pretend it is only anyone’s own choices holding them back from personal fulfillment and not the fact that the world cannot be made entirely of doctors, freelance writers, and boutique owners. and it’s even grosser to turn that worldview into a reason to make some people’s compromises illegal. or, for that matter, to turn it into a reason to make it people’s own fault that they are poor, and not the fault of a system that exists that makes it acceptable for people to work full time in necessary jobs and still be poor.
